Beyond Discipline: From Compliance to Community, 10th Anniversary Edition

By Alfie Kohn

Book Overview

What is most remarkable about the assortment of discipline programs on the market today is the number of fundamental assumptions they seem to share. Some may advocate the use of carrots rather than sticks; some may refer to punishments as logical consequences. But virtually all take for granted that the teacher must be in control of the classroom, and that what we need are strategies to get students to comply with the adult's expectations.

Alfie Kohn challenged these widely accepted premises, and with them the very idea of classroom management, when the original edition of Beyond Discipline was published in 1996. Since then, his path-breaking book has invited hundreds of thousands of educators to question the assumption that problems in the classroom are always the fault of students who don't do what they're told; instead, it may be necessary to reconsider what it is that they've been told to do--or to learn. Kohn shows how a fundamentally cynical view of children underlies the belief that we must tell them exactly how we expect them to behave and then offer positive reinforcement when they obey.

Just as memorizing someone else's right answers fails to promote students' intellectual development, so does complying with someone else's expectations for how to act fail to help students develop socially or morally. Kohn contrasts the idea of discipline, in which things are done to students to control their behavior, with an approach in which we work with students to create caring communities where decisions are made together.

Beyond Discipline has earned the status of an education classic, a vital alternative to all the traditional manuals that consist of techniques for imposing control. For this 10th anniversary edition, Kohn adds a new afterword that expands on the book's central themes and responds to questions from readers. Packed with stories from real classrooms around the country, seasoned with humor and grounded in a vision as practical as it is optimistic, Beyond Discipline shows how students are most likely to flourish in schools that have moved toward collaborative problem solving--and beyond discipline.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1416604723
• ISBN13: 9781416604723
• Release Date: August 2006
• Publisher: ASCD
• Length: 182 Pages
• Weight: 0.65 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.4" x 6.0" x 9.1"

Customer Reviews

Refreshing and thought provoking

I thoroughly enjoyed Alfie Kohn's book. It was a refreshing look at creating a democratic classroom where students are engaged, empowered, and respected. It will definitely influence how I behave in the classroom in the fall. It has led me to explore his other views and books on education and on parenting which I am currently reading.

Inspirational Book

I read this book while researching my topic for my MA thesis in elementary education. This book blew me away. It's provocative, it's funny and it challenges so many of the unnecessarily cruel and transparently manipulatie behaviors we use as teachers on a daily basis. While I agree that the book doesn't offer a paint by the numbers how to guide for implementing a more democratic and community based classroom, the intelligent reader can understand what needs to be done or at least look elsewhere for answers. This book inspired me allow me third grade students to throw out some of the old classroom rules and create new guidelines that they brainstormed, justified and ultimately settled on with me only acting as facilitator. It worked amazingly well and they really came up with some responsible guidelines for class behavior (although I gotta admit I was really holding my breath that they'd try to create some crazy stuff). At first I needed to remind them of these policies THEY CREATED but gradually they began to remind one another and there's been noticeable improvement. They own these new policies and have shown they can think critically and take charge. Best book I've ever read in education, hands down.

Why I Became a Teacher

First, Alfie Kohn is a former teacher, to answer a previous reviewer who said he wasn't. As I begin my fourth year of teaching, I have tried so many of the behavior-management methods. And as I look back on my teaching, I had the least behavior problems when my class was having fun and I was tailoring lessons to meet their interest. Whenever I decided to take a more traditional, back-to-basics approach, I found the class to be visibly more miserable with an increase in behavior problems. Alfie Kohn's book makes us take a reflective look at our teaching rather than blaming everything on the children. It challenges us to use the children as co-problem solvers and relinquish some control in the classroom. After a difficult past year, I realized that marble jars, funny money, class stores, tickets, and even behavior awards were simply bribing children, pitting them against each other, and creating a "What am I going to get for this?" mentality. I told myself that I wouldn't do it again this year. I feel so fortunate to have read this book before the beginning of school. This book reminds me why I wanted to become a teacher.

Best Book I've Read in a Long Time

Alfie Kohn is a lonely voice of reason and compassion amid a sea of reactionary rhetoric about accountanbilty and "classrooom management." He changed my life; let him change your's too.

A different perspective on "managing" the classroom.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. It offered me insights into classroom discipline that I had never considered. The most powerful statement made in the book--in my opinion-- is that, instead of wondering how to make children behave differently, we should be asking ourselves what we are doing to make them behave the way they are. Too often I make decisions solely for the purpose of being the "boss". This book helped me to stop and think about why I want the children to behave a certain way. I had a very difficult class a few years ago, and I wish I would have read this book prior to that time. However, during the reading, a lot of that class's problems made more sense to me!